An example for a conventional particle beam apparatus is a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Such apparatus is used to scan a finely focussed probe forming primary electron beam across a region of an object. The primary electrons impinging on the object result in secondary electrons which are detected by a detector. A signal generated by the detector represents an intensity of generated secondary electrons and is recorded in dependence of a location of the object to which the primary beam is directed. The recorded signals form a data set representing image information of an electron microscopic image of the object. This image information is then displayed on a display medium, such as a monitor, for observation by a user. The user may gather features of the object from the displayed image and may take a decision on how to further process the object based on the displayed image.
It has been found that the representation of particle beam images is sometimes insufficient. In particular, some users have perceived a deficiency of contrast of the representation. Sometimes, features of the object which should be visible in dark regions of the represented image or which should be visible in bright regions of the represented image are not recognized.